Bujinkan and Parkour

I have a ton of free time so I've been able to train a lot. I train parkour every saturday with Pines and it's good, I feel myself improving. I'm considering signing up to a Bujinkan dojo to improve my martial skill. It took a free lesson there to try it out.
At the dojo I learned more ways to apply boshiken, some hanbo (3 foot stick) fighting, these weird rolls (I'd learned them differently at my last Bujinkan dojo) and of course some regular hand to hand. Overall I felt it was good and I will probably join. There's only one problem, and that is that everything is taught in Quebecois French which still sounds weird to me, but it'll be like learning two things at once.
Went out to train with Pines today, he brought out a friend who I'll call Chest (he's been shirtless every time I've been with him). He's done cross-country running (like Pines), and is learning stuff pretty quickly although he cut up his hand doing some wall runs and trying to grab onto a cement ledge. We did our regular migration through a bunch of spot; we start at a place we call The Fort which is a large cement structure that has nice grippy walls and ledges, nice for vaulting and wall runs. We then go to Black Marble a place we named after the black marble that it's built from, it's slippery-ish but it's nice for general stuff. We move onto a place I call the Steppe (it's flat and tan, and it has steps lol) which is a great place to work on flow as the obstacles are just lined up waiting to be conquered. we take a short cut through some square thing and then go to a place where there is a jump we call the "Balls Precision". It's a precision jump that is relatively easy but has a pipe in the middle that threatens to tear them off if you jump too low. Our last big spot is the campus of Pine's girlfriend's school. It has all kindsa stuff to do, but every time I go I try a certain kong to cat that always fails, last time I ended up slipping on some ice, and this time I slipped because of mud on my shoes, I'll get it next time. We got kicked by security for training precisions but no chase just some guard with a nasal voice telling us we had to learn, it's such a great spot we'll probably be back though...

Operation: Roof Marathon

A great night with two people I've found to be interested in opping, parkour, and general sneaky stuff. The morning consited of me and Pines doing parkour, finding and buying the book "Access All Areas" in our student book store, and climbing a low roof downtown in daylight.
Later that night we decided to go out and do some more parkour and sneaking, this time Kusa was with us too.
Gear:
Me:
Black martial arts pants
Black sneakers
Black hoodie
Old USMC jacket (sleeves cut off)
Kusa:
Green hoodie
Tan cargo pants
Brown sneakers
Pines:
Black striped hoodie
Brown cargo pants
Black converse sneakers

We met up relatively early(other friends were going clubbing), it was probably around 10ish. Me and Kusa took the subway downtown, Pines met us outside the subway station. We grabbed some food and then went on our way.
We went down to a busy street and moved from parkour spot to parkour spot, training a bit on each one (we found a huge wrench at one and decided to go back and keep it later), we filmed a bit of out training for fun. We followed the street until we turned towards a well known university where Pines' girlfriend studies. There we did some more parkour (which impressed drunk people heading for clubs and some pretty girls as well Wink ). We saw some of Kusa's friends who went to the school and asked them about security and they told us security was invisible but that their building was to the north of the campus. After some parkour we moved around the campus and environs to look for some sneaky stuff to do.
Our first expedition of the night was a small roof on the campus. It was surrounded by buildings on all sides, but only touched the side of one of them. Before we made our way up we went underneath a dome camera and made sure it wasn't facing us, after that we moved towards and over a rail and a rooflet onto the low roof. Pines started filming a bit here as we crouch walked around the ventilation and up a ladder onto a higher roof. After checking it out for a while we got back down and continued to look for opportunities.
We crossed a few streets and found a building whose awning we wanted to climb but the street was too busy and the awning "wasn't epic enough" to do with that much risk involved. However the building was a residence for the aforementioned university AND it was an all girls residence so we knew we had to try something stupid there. We actually figured that all out when we went into a side alley and peeked over a wall to see a bunch of girls studying at tables at 12 on a Friday night. After checking the building's exterior for exits and weighting out balls to make sure we felt up for it we decided to climb a small wall talk into the residence, talk to girls and run from security if they whined at us. Nothing went according to plan Rolling Eyes We climbed the wall and crouched in the bushes on the other side then walked up to the door (backs straight, no stealth here, just gutsiness) and..
discovered it to be locked. We knocked and two Asian girls gave us dirty/confused looks through the glass but didn't let us in. We ran back and vanished over the wall then ran for a block or so before turning into an alley.
The alley though wasn't bare of impromptu exploring. I spotted a ladder that lead straight to the roof of a four story building. There was a balcony beside it which helped because the ladder started on the second floor. I took the lead, sneaking under the balcony then climbing it before grabbing the bottom rung of the ladder. The climb took forever and the cage around the ladder made it feel slightly claustrophobic but the roof was to tranquil and nice that it was well worth it. We explored more roof and enjoyed the skyline as we crouched behind ventilation ducts. We found a staircase down to the ground and took that. On out way down we saw a beware of do sign, but didn't have any real problems.
We continued to move along alleys (this city is full of them, you can move miles without setting foot on a major street), when I spotted a staircase that led upwards towards a barbed wire fence. Curious, I went up and found a wooden board leading to a roof. I tested the board to see if it could hold then crossed it onto the roof, Kusa and Pines followed suite. We moved forward in low crouches and found a ladder leading to higher location. I instinctively went to it and began ascending. At the top was another roof with another ladder Very Happy , we went up that one and were quite surprised to see a third ladder Shocked we scaled it too and reached the highest point of the gymnasium we were on (Pines checked some sky lights on the exploration on the way down). Kusa spotted a ladder and we used it to get onto a small substructure that has a roof that slanted on the sides. We got onto that and lay on our backs for a while and just talked and looked at the sky, Kusa showed me how to tell North with the stars. The view of the city was incredible, even though we had climbed a bunch we were still so close to the ground compared to the other buildings in sight. We stayed until the wind made us cold then we explored a bit and went back down.
The rest of the night is us travel via alleyways and contemplating entering a hotel but deciding against it, vowing to wait for summer instead when we'd be able to jump in the pool. We made our way to Pines' place and at one point dropped from a one story roof onto a main street (some people probably though we were crazy). We took a photo on a random statue and Kusa got one on another statue that he climbed on his own.
We spent time at Pine's place watching parkour videos until half an hour before our bus.
Before heading home me and Kusa picked up the wrench from earlier in the night and made our way to the bus stop. We found an old TV with knobs and an antennae and picked that up too. Got to the bus ran into friends, waited to get off, lugged the TV back to residence where a few high girls held doors open for us, dropped the TV off in Kusa's room, go to my room, put wrench on the ground, remove clothes, position myself under the covers, pretend to try to read Access All Areas and fall asleep.
A great night full of random opportunities.

I learned that:
Security at ****** University sucks, but the things to do around and in it do not suck.
Pines can be trusted to behave appropriately on ops (which I suspected before even going out that night but now I know for sure).
I probably have a fun, reliable three man team now

PK all Day

Lot's of parkour recently. The weather is clearing up and the snow is melting. Last night I went out with Kusa in some dark clothes to climb onto some roofs, but we went out too early and there were people, so we did a bunch of parkour near the new spot I found, and in a playground as well as on some train tracks. Was a great night run especially on the limited spots we had. Worked on a lot of stuff but didn't end up climbing the buildings, we'll get to it some other time...
Today had a great jam with my friend from Jersey (Pines), we basically did a migration jam discovering tons of spots around downtown and we then went into this campus we trained on before did a bunch there and then headed back towards where we started using only alleys. We have a lot in common and should train together more. Discovered a few great spots and we appreciate marble surfaces a lot because of how nice it feels. Great jam, we got ice cream and after talking to the chick behind the counter (who thought we were a team because we both wore red) we decided we wanna start a parkour club at our school.
Weekend is great so far and I look forward to tons of nice weather with lots of parkour :D.

Motivation, weather and new spots

Today I woke up late and missed class, but that doesn't man I didn't get anything done. The weather has been getting nicer and the snow piles are becoming puddles (but they're still there). The nice weather combined with the fact that I ended up on youtube watching parkour while I lay in bed near the window was the much needed motivation I needed to start parkour training again. I asked Kusa if he wanted to train but he had stuff to do. I decided to go out anyway and explore a spot I wanted to train at but never took the time out to train on, it was nice and I had a good time working on climb ups, cats, vaults and jumping. I also walked around and explored my neighborhood (which I barely know actually) and found a few rooftops that were easy to access, so I might go back with Kusa and check them out tonight with some darker clothes.
On a side note I'm working on handstands to improve body/spacial awareness and because it's just cool. Also I've accomplished a kinda goal I've had, climbing up a house and entering through the balcony window, not to visit a girlfriend with crazy parents but still fun nonetheless.